Johan Franzen celebrates one of his three goals. He scored nine goals in the 4-game series against Colorado, a record.

The only sweep of the conference semis was completed last night on another amazing performance by Johan Franzen and the Detroit Red Wings. The Colorado Avalanche, their roster ravaged by injury, were missing some of their most integral performers. They could not muster any resistance to a relentless Red Wings squad.

Franzen picked up his second hat trick in as many games, he established an NHL record for goals in a 4-game series, and the Wings picked up offense from Mikael Samuelsson and the incomparable Henrik Zetterberg in the 8-2 thrashing of their once-bitter rivals. Tomas Holmstrom had the Wings’ remaining tally. Chalk some of the result up to the skeleton crew the Avalanche had to field, but don’t deny that Detroit looked like a team possessed; determined to win since the two games they dropped to the Predators in Round One.

They await the winner of the Stars v. Sharks series, where Dallas has a chance to close it out in San Jose tonight. The Bay Area club staved off elimination in Game Four, but they’ve yet to win at home in this series and the Stars have been mightily impressive. Even if the Sharks can pull out another win, I can’t see the Stars losing this series.

Either way, Detroit has a long wait ahead of them before the Conference Finals begin, but they’ve booked their second consecutive trip there and this year’s team looks at least as good as the Cup winning squads of ’97, ’98 and ’02. Expect Mike Babcock to be accepting the Jack Adams trophy after his team has hoisted Lord Stanley.